


All the kingdoms of the world

by Eturni



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Blasphemy probably, Crowley's brand of temptation is easy when it forms a kindness, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Introspection, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 13:43:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19395343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eturni/pseuds/Eturni
Summary: And when Jesus wandered off into the desert to be tested and the smiting hand of the angels was just far enough at bay Crowley got his orders. Go and draw the kid away from his path, make him waver. Just enough doubt that the humans wouldn’t look on him as kindly afterwards. He was headed for sainthood at this point.It ended up being an oddly easy set of temptations to offer up.





	All the kingdoms of the world

**Author's Note:**

> So I was raised religious and I knew as soon as I saw this bit at the start of episode three what Crowley was talking about. It seemed like an interesting thing to flesh out a bigger take on.  
> Crowley's just so damn soft at the heart of it all.

Crowley had a soft spot for humans in general, despite the constant risk of their own actions making his job redundant. How could he not? They were made of free will and questions and everything that he should have been able to be without being Removed from Heaven like a plastered twenty-something on their fourth Jagerbomb that had just thrown up all over the bouncer’s shoes.

_Sorry, you’ve had one too many questions, flower, and we’re going to have to ask you to leave._

There was always a pull towards the ones that ended up becoming the proper saints, the decent martyrs.

Of course he was demonic, a true fiend and purveyor of evil no matter where he went so it couldn’t be that they reminded him of himself. Too many questions about the established order, too quick to ask why it couldn’t be better, why the ones ruling over it all should get such a bloody arbitrary say in what was right or not and who should be punished.

So it was probably that they reminded him of Aziraphale. Blinding bright sometimes and full of compassion for the little people that get trampled all over in the name of the Great Plan. Good to a fault (and only hope that Upstairs never realised that fault was there).

Admittedly though it was probably a bit of both. The angel was prone to closing himself down to watch the worst bits happen because everything was about Faith in Her plan. Crowley was prone to wondering why the little guy was always the one thrown under the bus (chariot, whatever) for the sake of Good. Most proper saints were a good mix of the two, if only because they saw the corruption only at the human level and never saw how much it really reflected how willing She and the rest of the jobsworth angels up there were willing to let everything go to shit as long as it advanced their own goals.

So of course,  _of course_ , Crowley found this screaming kid  upending tables at the temple and protecting women and gently suggesting that the rich do some good with their money rather than wipe their arses with gold and couldn’t help but keep an eye out for him.

And when he wandered off into the desert to be tested and the smiting hand of the angels was just far enough at bay Crowley got his orders. Go and draw the kid away from his path, make him waver. Just enough doubt that the humans wouldn’t look on him as kindly afterwards.  He was headed for sainthood at this point.

It ended up being an oddly easy set of temptations to offer up.

You find a man half-mad with starvation in the middle of a desert and it’s pretty easy to sit down and say “Hey, you’re supposed to be the son of God right? You got this far, good going, pat on the back and all that, maybe you should actually  _eat_ or something now. She gave you miracly powers and everything, could just reach out right there and have something to eat. Even as simple as just bread. She couldn’t begrudge you  _that_ could she?”

The look in the man’s eyes was just as on guard and suspicious as Aziraphale’s had been the first time they had met in the garden. And still it was just as kind as he had looked when he told him where the sword had gone. Jesus refused, son of God as he would say, demon tempting, of course he did.

But honestly he looked like a couple more days without might finish him off before the big day.

“Look how about I do then and all you have to do is eat?” Crowley pressed, lounging back on a warm boulder and miracling up the bread with a lazy click of his own fingers. “Fresh baked, ready to go. Know this really good place nearby, always thought about taking an old friend there. I don’t really know where he’s got to now. Kind of thought he’d be somewhere around here for all of this.”

Jesus had looked at him like he’d grown a second head. (Crowley double checked and he hadn’t) but had refused determinedly. “You can’t live by bread alone, only by the  W ord that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

The words left a bitter taste in his mouth and he half expected to hear the word ineffable.

“Kid words aren’t anything you could live off and Her word isn’t going to do anything about saving you in the end.” He got to his feet, sauntering over and looking over the man as though he could figure out if he _knew_. How much he knew.

Was he just walking into this blind? She’d let the rest of them do the same. Yes, the Great Plan was inevitable and perfect and  _ineffable_ but no one said you couldn’t wonder about it. Worry for the people. Not until Heaven had parted underneath him and dropped him burning into the pit Below.

He was suddenly overcome with the need to make him see. He’d barely grabbed Jesus’ arm before they were on the top of a temple, looking down at the ground below them. “You really think She even cares? You could jump right now and no angel’s going to protect you from it, She’d just  let you splatter  _right there_ and start again on someone else to do the job for you.”

Jesus looked down to the ground with a complete lack of fear that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the starvation. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. I do not need to test my Father, She is the one who is testing me.”

There was that Faith. The faith that was going to get him killed. Everyone knew this part of the plan and they were all too happy to let someone good and better than this and obviously too naive walk into his own death. Lamb to the slaughter, didn’t they say?

The noise that came out of Crowley was strangled and wrong and probably reported in several holy texts as a demonic laugh. Amazing how well things worked out to make him an admirable demon even when he wasn’t trying too hard to do wrong.

He gripped his arm tighter, pulling at the power that he could muster and the world made way for him, everything forming down into the atoms they had been and rearranging them both on a mountain top that was temporarily both in the world and just outside of it with a clear view across at it all.

“Kid, please, look at it, just _look at it_.” Crowley could feel himself on edge and desperate. Naturally because the temptation wasn’t going to plan, of course. “If She’s so good She’d give it to people like you. You’re doing so much good already, could do so much more for everyone and She’s going to pass it off and let it rot and wait for the Antichrist to suck it into Hell for a war nobody needs. And that might sound far away to _you_ but honestly you looked so far away when the first humans struck it out for a life here and it all comes far too quickly.”

The kid only shook his head again, though he was at least looking over the Earth and the kingdoms therein with the same kind of love that Crowley looked up at the stars. “I will do Her will, whatever that is.  I only serve the Lord God, I need no power over anything.”

It might have broken Crowley’s heart if he had one. “She’s going to let them kill you, you know.” He meant it to come out angry, an accusation, but it was soft and sad regardless.

He was not surprised to see a tremble in Jesus’ hand but he was surprised when he looked over and saw him looking with a level of understanding in his eyes that made Crowley feel stripped of his skin like the man could see the hole where his grace had been and every thought running through his head.

The expressions that ran over his face were a little too much like Aziraphale’s then: doubt but not enough of it. Fear but resignation and determination. All of it rushing like a waterfall into the end decision that She knew best no matter how hard the answer.

Crowley looked away first.

“Right. I guess that’s that then. But still, if you’ve already decided I guess there’s no harm in taking some time up here and looking over everything the world has to offer. Be a little rude given all the power I just used to get you up here for your tests.” He settled back against the peak, almost curled around it as he watched the world spin slowly below.

Surprisingly Jesus did sit down then and let him point out the kingdoms as they passed by.  Chatted through stupid little stories of the things humans got up to on all of the continents. Little sparks of good no matter what god they followed.

And, yes, he was still the demon Crowley, master of temptation. He also told stories of the absolute evils that people could commit against each other no intervention needed. Was it worth it to save people like that? Was it worth missing all of the good to be nothing more than a stepping stone for Her?

That softness, that goodness, hardly wavered at all in the face of it and Crowley figured that he must love the idiots down there just as much as that angel did.

All Crowley’s fondness and exasperation and annoyance wasn’t enough to change the kid’s mind though. When it came time to take him back it wasn’t with a serpentine squeeze around his shoulder, it was a firm hand on his shoulder and a wish that he could do something more to avert this terrible, terrible thing

E ven though Crowley had failed  the temptation , he couldn’t help but think that he had managed to put some more evil into the world anyway. After all every step the kid took forward was one more into the waiting arms of his executioners. And if things were a little blurred as he watched the kid stumble off it was definitely because of the heat distortion in the air.

He deserved so much more than this.

Crowley ha d most definitely been noticed , after all Aziraphale had been called in to watch over the execution.  In much the same way he’d been called up to watch the flood. Bit of a macabre set of tasks he was given to and yet he never seemed to enjoy it.

Didn’t stop him needling the angel, who’s only response was that he ‘wasn’t consulted on policy’. Good angel, not questioning no matter how high the price. All in God’s Plan. All for the eventual triumph of Heaven.

Crowley didn’t buy it, but then again he was too busy keeping the other up to date with his name change. Another thing the angel didn’t really question beyond the thought that his previous name hadn’t been too far from apt.

“Did you ever meet him?” Aziraphale looked distinctly uncomfortable with everything that was going on, eyes darting between Crowley’s distraction and the need to make sure this awful act was witnessed.

“Yeah, I showed him all the kingdoms of the world.” He shrugged off glibly.

“Why?” Aziraphale’s whisper was strained.

Because he was being used as a pawn and it should have been better than that. Because he reminded me of the world’s worst angel who gave up his sword to keep the first humans safe. Because why not when life was so dam-blessedly short for them and he had nothing to lose or gain out of it. “He’s a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited.” And then, as though he was completely unaware of this grand move in the plan “What was it he said that got everyone so upset?”

“Be kind to each other.” Another clink of the hammer and another flinch rippling through Aziraphale’s whole body.

It was confirmation all over again that the angel wasn’t quite the same as all the others. And maybe it made him feel a little closer to the other still.

Maybe it didn’t have any effect at all for just that moment because there was a man being tortured to his death less than a hundred feet away.

But Crowley did consider the moment sometimes. The inevitable end of someone who was later made so much bigger and so much smaller than the truth of his very human heart. The angel who stood at his side while it happened with no stomach for any of the necessary sacrifices that Good called for.


End file.
